Summer Finals are this week!  Wish me luck!

I’m a little behind on my Xanga reading because I was doing a lot of homework this weekend.  I did take some time for fun and spent Saturday at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh.  Lots of fun!  Saw some great painting, sculptures, etc,  a glass blowing exhibition and heard some great music.  Also drank fresh squeezed lemonade and enjoyed other culinary treats such as Chicken-on-a-Stick and corndogs.  The heartburn was wretched but the food was sooo tasty.

Well, Garth and I, after nearly five years of marriage, had The Talk.  You know the one, should we or should we not try to have a baby.  I’m not sure how I feel.  I know I’m 34 and not getting any younger, but I feel like there is so much I want to do yet.  I think if you have a baby, it should be the number one priority in your life.  I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet, but if I’m not now, will I ever be?  This is probably a bit personal for a blog I guess, but I wrote a poem about what I thought it would be like in those moments when you are the only one who knows that you are pregnant.

Secret Mother

Lying atop a king-sized bed absorbing the
sounds of starlings and crickets in these
pitch dark first moments of morning,
I feel your hidden breath synchronize with mine.

A sleeping calico lies curled on my womb
as if she knows to warm you in the cool dawn.
Your father sleeps beside us and dreams of
climbing apple trees and riding railroad cars.

I rise and walk to the window, open the glass
to the scented air of marigolds and chives.
The sky is lucid and cloudless, and I think I see
your curled tendrils and golden cheeks in the stars.

Hello,

I don’t usually write much in the line of surrealist poetry, but this piece may qualify as such.  It’s another mosaic poem, since that format seemed to fit the theme best.  Anyway, your feedback is always appreciated.

Thanks,
Janette

Dreams of Sleeping in the Rain

March 5, 2005

The first was of a body, lifeless, floating in the Monongahela River.
Droplets fall like acid and burn my face, the acrid odor of decay
forces wakefulness.  The edge of the water covers and retreats from
my transfixed shoes as her red hair flaps out like an Oriental fan.

November 18, 2005

I float drowsily on the back of a black swan, leaning on the erect, proud neck.
A docile rain shimmers and resurrects the dying pond.  The swan
raises his head to drink in the clear water, crying out in joy.
His singing sounds like liquid diamonds.

August 4, 2006

A sinister child with dark orange eyes prods my corpse with a stick,
scratching my forehead as he moves the hair from my unchanging gaze.
He kneels to dig through pockets, his hands stained with blue water.
Anger resusitates, and I clutch his wrist against the backdrop of downpour.

December 17, 2006

The Snow Queen sits at a piano on the edge of the lake,
playing Tchaikovsky as my skates cut Celtic spirals on the ice.
I lay on the glacial sheet as falling snow turns to wintry rain.
She sings and plays on to a frozen Beauty.

February 12, 2007

I dream that I cannot reach him and the keys for our house
do not work.  The phone goes unanswered, piercing the silence
like an exploding clock.  The flicker of the television illumines
his eyes and the popcorn.  I sleep on the deck as it begins to rain.

I’ve been exceedingly nervous about the reports I have heard that cell phone usage is disrupting the natural patterns of bees.  They are so important to the world’s ecosystem, helping plants to reproduce, and thereby keeping us all fed.  Recently, science has offered another hypothesis that it may be an unknown disease that is killing off the honey-makers.  The reason they give for this theory is that bees get their direction from the sun, not from auditory information, so it is unlikely cell phone waves are throwing them off kilter.  Either way, I hope they find an answer and fix the problem soon.  Here is a poem for the bees.

Bees

A royal priesthood, these sons of the Queen
say goodbye to her in search of sunlight,
following the maps of song and dancing.

They skip like dust on the edge of morning
to steal a pollen kiss from petaled lips,
the sweep of mouth a brush of fairy wing.

They are the makers of pyramids, of
menacing cone hives in a child’s nightmare,
harbingers of honey, pain, and flora.

Does the exquisite music of radar
foil the impenetrable procession?
Do not bid farewell in delectation.

I haven’t been on the back of a horse in ages.  The weather in Pittsburgh today  is gorgeous, 78 degrees, low humidity, refreshing breeze.  While Pittsburgh isn’t a huge metropolis, its big enough that finding a place to ride without spending a small fortune is damn near impossible.

This is an old poem, one I posted ages ago, but I reworked it and made several changes, so I wanted to get some feedback.  Here’s hoping you find something in your life that can carry you, ride you, and take you where you want to be.

El John

There is something about

women and horses

how they are pictures of beauty,

a representation of

that which is wild and

hidden inside of us.

On the back of the horse

I was invincible.  El John

would charge up the hillside

his hoofs pounding the ground

in sweet rhythmic cadence

to a natural earth song.

The smell of corn growing

and freshly mowed hay

smelled sweet in the Highlands,

filling my nose and lungs

like an intoxicating drug as

the wind whipped his mane.

It was the closest thing to flying

you can feel while on the ground,

a kind of safe danger,

he would reach a naked gallop

with joyful abandon, his mouth

foaming at the exertion of his power.

Sitting beside my dying father,

I think of El John now.

Smile weak, eyes closed in pain,

the breath is labored

as he becomes a shadow of

the man he used to be.

I remember how Dad told me

that animals just get old sometimes

as my rides with El John

came abruptly to an end.

His life was a roar, his death a murmur

as he did not wake up one spring morning.

Holding my father’s hand

I cherish this time to say goodbye,

a luxury I did not have with El John.

As his minutes on earth ebb away,

I realize that the hardest and rarest

part of love is letting go.

I wrote this toninght and I can’t tell if its done or not.  Does it seem complete, or does it leave you wanting more?  Anyway, here’s the poem.

The Banshee Child (as told by my Mother)

There were fruitless efforts
to make of her a young lady
as red nail polish splashed carelessly
upon her clothes like spilled blood
as she crawled on the ground in
her makeshift trench, playing war
with the boys across the street,
Barbie’s head plucked from its shoulders,
the body flung like a grenade
into the neighboring ditch.

I asked for topics, and TheNarrator served as a muse!  He showed me this poem form called a countdown.  5 stanzas, first 5 lines, then 4, then down to 1. 

Countdown to Heresy

Prophets act according to
their conscience, bringing themselves
in balance with mysticism.
Fantasy mingles with faith,
belief with rational inquiry.

Thought is born of searching
mysteries and their philosophies,
the secret teachings of all ages
in the ancient quest for light.

Questions brand thee heretic,
and the centuries have persecuted
with burning stakes and burning crosses.

The heretics rise against injustice.
Can you hear their song?

We shall overcome.

I’m up to my eyeballs in writing assignments…but I’m not complaining.  I’ve started an article for Venus Envy Magazine on female castration in third world countries, I’m writing a piece on my Dad on how he was a drug dealer in his teens and twenties and ended up a father and preacher, plus I’m doing a piece for school on odd jobs (I have a friend who is a professional psychic, so I’m going to ask her.)

Well, something that helps keep me going when I’m doing this much writing is to take time for poetry.  It’s the most easily accessible way for me to tap into my creative side.  I’m sort of at a loss at the moment for topics. 

Any suggestions?

Wish me luck!